by Trish Morey
He shook his head. Her father really should have been a better man, and not left his daughter so exposed. It was almost a shame.
Almost.
A car whisked them to the airport and the waiting helicopter, for the short flight to Athens, where another car was waiting to take Athena to her home.
‘I’d better give you my address,’ she said, as Alexios handed her into the car.
He didn’t waste his time listening while she gave the driver the details.
He didn’t need to.
He had a file on all things Athena.
He already knew where she lived.
* * *
Athena was still glowing when the car pulled up outside her apartment, still on an endorphin high that had started with the fabulous news of the shipwreck, and ended with Alexios insisting on not only accompanying her back to Athens, but doing it in style in his own helicopter. And there was no hint of her good mood letting up any time soon. Not with this man in her life.
‘I’ll see you to the door,’ he said, handing her out, and to Athena it seemed that endorphins bounced and sparkled in the air between them. Something pinged in her heart then, and her breath hitched, so she felt light-headed and hyperaware. The warmth of his hand around hers. The brush of their linked hands against her hip. The shift in the air as it made way for them.
Was this how falling in love felt, she wondered, as if the whole world was alive and alight with colour and joy? Could it be possible that she was falling in love with Alexios?
He gathered her under his arm, and there was no time to wonder at her discovery, no time to pull it apart, and examine it, only to marvel that fitting in with his body seemed the most natural thing in the world, as if their bodies were made to go together. She snuggled her face against his shoulder, drinking in his sandalwood-spiced aftershave blended with the beguiling scent of man.
‘You smell delicious,’ she said as they reached the front door.
‘And you,’ he said, turning her back to the door, ‘taste delicious.’ He kissed her then, sandwiched between his hard body and the door, his lips and tongue and hot mouth combining to send her bones to jelly and her senses into disarray, right there at the front door of her apartment block.
It must be love, she guessed, as he broke the kiss, his nose resting against hers, their ragged breath intermingling. Otherwise why would her heart be tripping so crazily and her blood all but fizzing in her veins? And why would she feel such a powerful connection that her body was drawn magnetically to be with his?
‘Maybe,’ he said, his warm breath like a magical potion that made her want more, ‘we should take this upstairs.’
She curled her arms around his neck and pressed herself tighter to him, because she didn’t want this day to end either. ‘I like the way you think.’
He dismissed his driver and together they tumbled into her bed. In the grips of her passion, she didn’t care that her apartment was in the dodgy end of Athens and that it was small and modest compared to the spacious palace they’d left behind in Santorini. She didn’t care that her furniture was second hand and worn or that Alexios might think less of her now he’d seen where she lived. All she cared about was that Alexios was in her bed, his scent on her pillows and his limbs tangled with hers.
* * *
Dawn cast a soft light through the curtains. Athena winced, not at the dark silhouette of the man sleeping beside her, but at what it revealed. For the light might be flattering, but still it couldn’t disguise how modest her tiny apartment really was. Alexios must be thinking he was slumming it.
She had to get up for work soon, the excitement of the shipwreck would see her at work early to start planning the recovery expedition, but suddenly it seemed important to come clean. She trusted him after all. Last night she’d half convinced herself she loved him.
Beside her, he stirred, stretching, his arm seeking her. Finding her and curling around to draw her close to his body and his whiskered cheek. ‘Kalimera, Athena,’ he said, his voice as gravelly as his cheeks, before he kissed her, shifting his body so his morning erection pressed hard against her thigh as he kissed his way down her throat. Her heart did that fluttering thing again and Athena suspected she was right. She’d had boyfriends before, when sex was all there was to tie her to them. She knew all about how lust felt. This was different. More special. Deeper.
‘I have to go to work,’ she protested, squirming, battling her own desires as much as his advances.
‘Later,’ he murmured, his mouth busy nuzzling her skin, his wonderful big hands roaming her body, drinking in her softness.
‘No.’ She put her hands over his. ‘I’m serious, Alexios. There’s something I need to tell you. It’s important.’
His body stilled. He drew his head back from where his mouth had been. ‘Oh? Like what?’
She smiled, wondering if he thought she was going to tell him she loved him. Wasn’t that the kind of thing that struck fear into the hearts of men everywhere, especially when they imagined they were simply having a fling? But even if she suspected it might be the truth, it was too soon to put it into words. They were too new, these feelings unfurling in her chest; too fragile to reveal just yet. She had to be sure, of herself before she could admit it—and sure of him.
She took a deep breath, smiling at the crease in between his eyebrows. ‘It’s not bad, I promise. It’s just—well, I know you must be wealthy. Nobody has a helicopter and drivers at their beck and call if they’re not.’
‘My business is successful,’ he conceded, ‘that’s true.’
‘And I know you think I’m just a poor archaeologist, and really, I am—or I was—but I came into an inheritance recently. It seems, when my father died a few months back, he left me a bit of money.’
Alexios let her go and raised himself up on one elbow, and she gazed up at him in the half-light. He was beautiful in the mornings, his thick hair all designer bedhead and deliciously so, his jaw and cheeks lined with stubble. He reached a hand up to rub that jawline now, and she could almost feel the delicious abrasiveness of his whiskers against her own fingertips. ‘A bit?’
‘Well, more than a bit, really. More like a lot. My father was Stavros Nikolides. Have you heard of him?’
* * *
Alexios blinked hard, pinching the top of his nose between his fingers, trying to swallow against the bile that rose in his throat at the mention of that name before it could leach in and poison his words. How could he tell her that her father was the reason he was here in her bed? ‘There are not many in Greece who would not have heard of that man.’
She nodded, accepting his words as the truth, clearly reading nothing more into his flat delivery. ‘He left everything to me. His businesses. His fortune. Everything.’
He scanned her face. ‘How do you feel about that?’
She shrugged. ‘Weird. It’s still hard to believe. I’d only found out that day in Santorini that we met. Remember you said I looked like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders?’
He remembered. He remembered the little-girl-lost expression on her face as she’d stared into space. He remembered the feeling that had fuelled him that day, that he was so close to realising his dream, he could taste it. He felt the memory of that feeling twist and squirm in his gut, a living thing, a serpent, promised a meal and gone unfed. Hungry.
Soon, he told it, trying to quieten the writhing beast so that he might talk without it twisting its way out of his mouth. ‘I remember.’ The two words came out with a gravel crust.
She didn’t notice the trouble he was having. It was as if she was focused on the past, her mind full of remembering that day and the feelings it invoked, just as he was. ‘I felt like I was being crushed under the news. It was so unexpected—too much to take in. I was shocked, and I was sad too, because I never knew what he’d done and I never had a chance to even
say goodbye.’
He growled and pushed himself up higher in the bed. He didn’t want to hear about her regrets. He had no regrets about his plans, not when it came to Stavros Nikolides. ‘So you’re no longer just a poor archaeologist?’
‘Not any more.’ She smiled. ‘I hope you don’t mind I didn’t tell you before.’
‘I thought you trusted me.’
‘I do! You showed me I could trust you from the first day we met. It’s just taken a lot to come to terms with. You do understand, don’t you, why I couldn’t tell you? I had to be—cautious.’
‘I understand. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.’ He curled an arm around her shoulders to pull her close for his kiss. ‘Maybe it is time I made my own confession.’
She drew back. ‘What confession?’
‘The palace in Santorini. I wasn’t just a guest.’
Her head tilted, her eyes narrowed. ‘It’s yours?’
‘It’s mine.’
‘Wow.’ She smiled, one eyebrow cocked. ‘If I’d realised I was being picked up by such a well-heeled gigolo, I might have agreed to have dinner with you earlier.’ She was teasing now, her fingernails raking lazy circles around his nipples.
He snatched her hand in his, the danger passed. He’d been right to change the direction of the conversation, but it wasn’t just that, he knew. Because she had a way of unravelling the knotted serpent in his gut, of placating it. Because of course he hadn’t forgotten his dream. She was eating out of his hand, wasn’t she? She was opening up to him and telling him her secrets—just as he’d planned for her to do. ‘I thought that if you knew it was mine, it might scare you off.’
She conceded a laugh. ‘You’re probably right. I was already on edge that day.’ Her eyes narrowed, she smiled up at him. ‘So...just how much are you worth?’
‘A few billion.’ He shrugged. ‘The exact number’s not important to me.’
‘What is important?’
Honouring my deathbed promise to my father.
‘What I can do with it. Grow something to ensure the future security of my family and my employees.’
Not to mention, fund my revenge...
‘But you don’t have a family.’
‘I will, one day.’ When the serpent in his gut had been satisfied and he could move on. ‘When I find the right woman.’
After all, his parents had been happily married for the best part of forty years before the balance of their years was cruelly stolen from them. He knew such things were possible. He’d just been too focused to bother with anything but the most physical of relationships until he’d made good on his deathbed promise to his father. Meanwhile it didn’t hurt his case one bit to see a blush creeping up Athena’s cheeks, and he could tell she was wondering whether she might be the one.
Not a chance.
‘Anyway, does that change anything, that we both have money?’
She shook her head. ‘No, not at all. It’s kind of funny, when you think about it. I mean, what are the chances of running into another billionaire when you sit down at a café for coffee?’
He gave a wry smile, tucking loose tendrils of her hair behind her ear, and kissed the tip of her nose, knowing that chance had nothing to do with it. ‘It seems the goddess of wisdom and the defender of mankind have something else in common.’
‘And that’s good, isn’t it?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Because everyone warned me to watch out for gold-diggers who might want to help relieve me of my fortune. But if you’ve got your own money, you’re hardly going to come after mine.’
His chin lifted, he kind of smiled as the arm around her shoulders tightened. ‘Why would I want to do that?’ he said, even as the serpent writhed and convulsed and grew long, sharp spines that lodged deep, deep down in his gut.
CHAPTER SIX
ATHENA SAT ALONGSIDE Loukas in his office, going over the plans for the expeditions. Dust motes danced on what sunlight managed to make it through the grimy office windows, before the dull rays illuminated the bookshelves that lined the walls, and the papers littering his ancient desk. In the midst of a room that looked as well used as Loukas, Athena’s laptop was the only concession to modern times.
Divers, dinghies, sonar equipment and security, Athena made sure they covered every contingency. And if she could have paid to guarantee calm weather, she would have done that too.
Loukas looked up when they had finished, satisfied that the expedition could get underway as soon as they could secure the necessary boats. ‘This is a wonderful thing for you to do, Athena, to use your own money in this way.’
‘To tell you the truth, I was embarrassed when the lawyers told me how much I was worth. And seriously, what else would I do with it? There’s far too much for one person and it’s nice to be able to do something useful with it.’
Loukas grunted his assent. ‘And all this time you had no idea your father had named you as beneficiary?’
‘The last I knew was the letter that came from his lawyers years ago, telling me I’d been disinherited. I have no idea when he changed his mind, or why. Perhaps because I was his only child and there was nobody else?’ She shrugged.
‘Perhaps,’ Loukas conceded. ‘But maybe too because he was proud of you, and the way you excelled at your studies and with the work you are doing.’
Was it possible her father was proud of her? Athena thought back to the rare meetings they’d had, usually over lunch or dinner at one of Stavros’s favourite restaurants. He’d ask her about her studies and her work, but she’d always got the impression he’d simply been trying to make conversation with a daughter he’d barely known after being estranged for years. ‘He never told me that.’
‘Was he the kind of man to wear his emotions on his sleeve?’
She laughed a little, remembering back to the yelling matches that had followed her out of whichever of his mansions she’d happened to be staying in. ‘Hardly, though he had no problems showing his disapproval when he was angry. Though admittedly that was in my rebellious teenage years. I don’t think I gave him too much to be proud of back then. It wasn’t really a surprise when he disinherited me. Though it cost me.’
‘Because you had to fend for yourself?’
‘Some, but mostly it cost me in friends. Somehow I wasn’t the popular party girl any more. One by one they drifted away.’
Her phone beeped and she reached for it. Alexios, of course, who was already making plans for dinner tonight, a different restaurant every night, a different view of coastline or harbour, and afterwards, lovemaking long into the night. She smiled, her inner muscles already tingling in anticipation. The man was insatiable.
Loukas was watching her when she put her phone down, the eyes in his creased face narrow and sparking with curiosity. ‘Is something happening, Athena?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You seem different. Happier.’
‘How can I not be happy when we’re about to embark on an expedition of a lifetime?’
‘Yes, this is true, and yet, are you sure that’s all it is? You’re paying a lot more attention to your phone than you usually do. Are you sure you haven’t found a new friend?’
She was about to deny it. It was too early and too new, and who knew where what was happening between her and Alexios would end up and when? But this was her mentor, her oldest and most trusted friend. She smiled. ‘I met someone in Santorini. A man.’ A man whom she’d spent every night with since. His penthouse apartment or her shoebox—it didn’t matter, so long as there was a bed, or a table or somewhere to lean up against while they made love.
The old man’s eyes lit up. ‘And this is what is putting the sparks in your eyes and the roses in your cheeks? I suspected as much.’
‘It’s not all down to him, I swear. Although...’ Her teeth found he
r bottom lip as she thought back on those torrid nights. ‘He’s wonderful, Loukas. His name is Alexios and he’s tall and handsome.’
‘Alexios? So he’s Greek, then? This is good. He won’t be about to spirit you away from us. We don’t want to lose you.’
‘Stop that, Loukas!’ she scolded gently. ‘We’ve only just met. It’s too early for worrying or making long-term plans.’
‘Given the look in your eye, I very much doubt that. I’d say you’ve fallen hard. It happens that way sometimes. I’m glad for you. You’ve been alone too long.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, trying to get some sort of perspective on it now that she was back at her day job, even if she knew Alexios was waiting for her after her working day was done, and it was a miracle she could get a perspective on anything knowing what the night would bring. ‘It may fizzle out, it may go nowhere, but he treats me so well. He makes me feel special. He makes me feel...’ she sighed ‘...good about myself.’
The old man chuckled.
She laughed. ‘Okay, so I sound a bit besotted. But you should meet him. You’d like him, I know.’
The old man nodded approvingly and put his gnarled-fingered hand to her shoulder. ‘I am glad you have found someone special. When you have a job like ours, it is so easy to bury yourself in the past. You have to remember to live in the present. Or suddenly, when you open your eyes, you see that you are not so young any more, and that life has passed you by.’
There was a wistfulness in his words that gave them greater import. He’d rarely spoken of his private life, and she knew little about him, other than knowing he had no close family. ‘Is that what happened to you? Is that why you never married?’
His retort was gruff. ‘I was a fool,’ he said. ‘I thought I would be young for ever. I thought I had all the time in the world and that Maria would wait for me.’ He raised his hands, a gesture she read as a combination of surrender and go figure. ‘She didn’t wait, of course. She was far more sensible than to wait for a man lost in his dusty holes in the ground. Six children, I hear she had, all grown up now and with children of their own, and she would be the best mother and yia-yia to each and every one of them.’ He raised a wonky finger to her, the one she knew he’d broken when a rock had fallen from the walls of an excavation and crushed his hand. ‘You mark my words, Athena, if you get a chance to love, then embrace it. Life is too short to waste but far too long to be busy alone.’